All Quiet on Arrival (16 page)

‘That's the one, Mr Barnes,' I said.

‘Is there a problem, then?'

‘Yes, but it's my problem, not yours,' I said. ‘Mrs Barton's been murdered.'

‘Blimey!' This information produced an interesting reaction. Barnes hurriedly tapped a few details into his computer before looking back at us with an expression of relief. ‘That's all right,' he said. ‘She settled the account.'

‘What was the name of the man who did the installation, Mr Barnes?' asked Kate.

‘Bruce Metcalfe, an Australian. He was a good worker, and completed the job single-handed.'

‘From when to when?'

Barnes referred to his book again. ‘Seventeenth to the twenty-third of June, but I eventually had to sack him. Pity really because, like I said, he was a good worker. In fact, he was more than that. He came in one morning and said he'd approached Mrs Barton – what we call a cold call in the trade – and persuaded her to have a new kitchen put in. And that was only four days after I'd taken him on. Not bad during a recession. You don't get many workers like that, I can tell you.'

It was easy to understand how Metcalfe could have persuaded Diana Barton that she needed a new kitchen. Knowing what we did about her, Metcalfe would have had no problem in sweet-talking the willing Diana straight into bed. But why had he picked on her?

‘Why did you sack him, then?'

‘He was on drugs.'

‘How did you know?'

‘I caught him in the stockroom one morning when he was supposed to be putting together the gear he needed for that day's work, and he was snorting the bloody stuff. Bold as brass. So I gave him the push on the spot. I won't have that at any price. They might injure themselves on the job, and then I'd have the health and safety Gestapo down on me like a ton of bricks.'

‘What date did you sack him?' It was looking very much as though this was the Bruce who had been mentioned as one of the guests at Diana's party.

Barnes interrogated his computer again. ‘Twenty-ninth of July,' he said.

‘Do you have an address for this Metcalfe?' I asked. The date was significant, and I tried not to get too excited about the fact that it was the Monday following the murder of Diana Barton.

‘Sure do. It was number nineteen Dakar Road, Fulham. It's not far from here. I gather it's a bit of a doss house, but he was a single guy, so I suppose it was good enough for him.'

‘It looks to me as though Metcalfe made a point of seeking out Diana Barton, Kate,' I said, as we left Mr Barnes. ‘And persuaded her that she needed a new kitchen. But I wonder why he should've picked on her, unless he knew her previously. Or knew of her.'

‘I wouldn't mind betting that he bedded her almost immediately, too,' said Kate. ‘Food for thought.'

‘Talking of which, Kate, I think we'll grab a bite to eat,' I said. ‘There must be a half decent pub around here somewhere.' It was now almost half past one.

Number 19 Dakar Road proved to be an old Victorian house with steps leading up to the front door. Three stories high with a basement area, it was in poor condition. Some of the stucco facing had broken away to reveal the brickwork beneath. The windows were dirty, and what used to be the front garden had been concreted over to accommodate an ageing Volvo. A broken wash-hand basin was lying next to a couple of overflowing wheelie bins.

‘Looks like a fun place,' said Kate, as she hammered on the front door.

The balding, middle-aged man who answered was wearing jeans and a singlet, each as dirty as the other. Several complicated tattoos adorned his muscular arms.

‘We're police officers,' said Kate.

‘Oh, and what does the law want with me?' The man gave us a glance that combined apprehension with suspicion.

‘Are you the owner of these premises?' Kate asked.

‘Yeah.'

‘Who are you, then?'

‘Fred Makepeace, if it's any of your business.'

‘Well, it is my business.' Kate placed a finger firmly on Makepeace's chest and pushed him back into the entrance hall. ‘How many rooms have you got here?' It certainly seemed to be the sort of doss house that Barnes had described.

‘What's this about? There ain't nothing wrong here. I run a respectable house.'

‘You could've fooled me,' said Kate. ‘How many rooms?' she asked again.

‘Six. All bed-sits.'

‘All let out, are they? And am I going to find any toms here?'

‘No, you ain't. I wouldn't take no prostitutes or your lot'd be round here quicker than you can say knife. I pay me taxes, and I have the bleedin' council round here about once a month. He's some geezer from environmental health, he is. Makes me life a bleedin' misery.'

‘We're looking for a man called Bruce Metcalfe.'

‘Gone,' said Makepeace.

‘Gone where?'

‘Search me.'

‘Not without rubber gloves,' said Kate, ‘and I haven't got any with me.'

‘Mr Makepeace,' I said, finally tiring of the man's churlish lack of co-operation, ‘we are conducting a murder enquiry, and I suggest that you assist us to the best of your ability, because right now my temper is shortening quite dramatically. That might provoke me into continuing this little chat down at the nick, and there's no telling what else I might find out about you once I start having a trawl through our records.'

Makepeace took a pace back. ‘I don't know nothing about no murder,' he protested. The manner in which he'd replied left me in no doubt that he was familiar with police station charge rooms. He might even know his way round some of Her Majesty's prisons.

‘In that case, you'd better tell me where Metcalfe is.'

‘I don't know, guv'nor. He never said where he was going.' Makepeace adopted a wheedling tone. ‘He paid up to the end of the week, and cleared off. He said something about going back to Australia. That's where he said he came from.'

‘What date did he leave?'

‘I don't rightly remember.'

Kate took a step towards the recalcitrant boarding-house owner, invading his personal space. ‘Then you'd better look it up in your register, hadn't you, sport. I'm sure you keep proper records for the Revenue and Customs people, because they might just come round and do a bit of checking.' She paused. ‘And they certainly will if I have a word with them.'

‘You'd better come in the office,' said Makepeace hurriedly.

What passed for Makepeace's office was a tip. A dilapidated vacuum cleaner, a couple of buckets and a worn out mop stood in one corner on the bare boards of the room. Under a window so dirty it was difficult to see out of it, stood a table piled high with paper, letters and several copies of the
Daily Mirror
. A mangy tabby cat was asleep on top of a heap of telephone directories.

‘It's here somewhere,' said Makepeace, pushing the cat on to the floor, and ferreting through the mess. ‘Ah, here we are.' He produced a dog-eared ledger. ‘Yeah, he went on the twenty-ninth of July.'

It was the same date that Metcalfe was sacked from his job as a kitchen fitter. He must have returned to Dakar Road straight away, packed his belongings and moved out. Perhaps he
had
gone back to Australia.

‘Are you sure you don't know where Metcalfe went from here?' asked Kate menacingly.

‘Sure I'm sure.'

‘Did any letters arrive for him?'

‘Yeah, now you come to mention it.' Once again Makepeace sifted through the piles of paper on his desk. ‘Here you are. This was the only one.' He handed Kate a letter bearing an Australian stamp.

‘We'll take that,' said Kate, and peered at the postmark. ‘It's from Darwin in the Northern Territory. Why am I not surprised.'

I assumed that Kate had no very high opinion of people from Darwin.

‘Ain't you supposed to have a warrant to take things like that?' protested Makepeace. ‘I mean he might come back for it.'

‘Are you trying to tell me my job, mate?' demanded Kate, staring straight at Makepeace with a threatening look in her eye.

‘No, but I just wondered,' whined Makepeace, wisely deciding not to fence with Kate.

‘Well, I should stop wondering if I was you,' said Kate. ‘It'll hurt what passes for your brain. But if he does come back, he can collect it from Scotland Yard. Tell him to ask for Detective Inspector Ebdon.' She turned to me. ‘I reckon that's all we can do here, guv.'

And so it seemed to be. It had been a fruitless sort of day. If Bruce Metcalfe was the Australian who'd been at Diana's party, it was possible that he had gone back to Australia as Makepeace had suggested. On the other hand, he could just as well have remained here. But finding an Australian in London is fraught with difficulty. I know; I've tried before.

‘Metcalfe might be living in the Bayswater area, guv,' suggested Kate.

‘Why there?'

‘Well, James Barton's body was found in Sussex Square. It could be that Metcalfe, if he's the murderer, didn't want to stray far from where he's living now. Wherever that is.'

‘You're clutching at straws, Kate,' I said.

‘What else is there to clutch at, guv?'

W
hen we returned to Curtis Green, I asked Colin Wilberforce to enter Metcalfe's name on the Police National Computer with a direction that I was to be contacted if he was found. I also got him to pass the information to the drugs section of Revenue and Customs, and to that branch of the Specialist Crime Directorate – another pompous title – that dealt with the enforcement of drug legislation. But I had no great hope that either of these agencies would find Metcalfe for me.

‘I don't know if this will help, guv.' Kate handed me the letter she had seized from Fred Makepeace at Dakar Road.

Headed Waimatutu Station, Tamorah, Darwin, and dated Saturday the thirteenth of July, it was signed ‘Your loving cousin Ethel.' Kate told me that ‘station' was the Australian term for a large farm. The content of the letter described the day-to-day happenings on the station, inconsequential news about nearby neighbours, problems with the weather, and how much the veterinary surgeon's bills had risen since Bruce left there. Finally, in a postscript, it reported that someone called Marlene had given birth to a twelve-pound-seven-ounce boy.

‘It might give us a lead, Kate,' I said. ‘I'll give Steve a ring.'

Inspector Steve Granger of the Australian Federal Police was an attaché at his country's high commission in the Strand.

‘Steve, it's Harry Brock at the Yard.'

‘G'day, Harry. What can I do for you?'

‘I'm looking for an Australian, Steve,' I began.

There was a guffaw of laughter. ‘Aren't we all, mate. I've got a list of wanted Australians as long as your bloody arm. What's this particular mongrel been up to?'

I explained about the murders of Diana and James Barton, and the fact that Bruce Metcalfe could well be the Australian who was at Diana's ‘kitchen' party.

‘A kitchen party?' queried Granger. ‘You pommies sure have some bloody strange customs.'

‘It's like a barbecue, but indoors, Steve,' I countered. ‘Look, I know it's a long shot, but if this guy has DNA that matches samples we've recovered from the two victims, he's got some questions to answer.'

‘You got anything to go on, Harry?'

‘We picked up a letter addressed to him at the last place he was known to be living,' I said, and gave Steve the address of Bruce Metcalfe's ‘loving cousin Ethel'. ‘Any chance you could have enquiries made at this Waimatutu Station? They might be able to tell us Metcalfe's present whereabouts.'

‘Sure, Harry, no worries,' said Granger. ‘D'you want him arrested?'

‘Not at this stage, Steve. On the evidence we've got so far we'd never get a fugitive offender's warrant. All I want to do at the moment is to find out where Metcalfe is now. And there's one other thing, Steve …' I explained about Horton, and that he'd got a son in Australia who was married to a woman called Elizabeth née McDonald, known as Beth. ‘He's said to be a mining engineer, but I don't know where he lives. Is there a professional association of mining engineers that might have an address for him?'

‘Only if he's qualified, Harry. A lot of them aren't, but they still call themselves engineers. Leave it with me. I'll give it my best shot.'

I gave the letter back to Kate. ‘It's a case of wait and see,' I said.

‘Are we going to have another word with Horton, guv?'

‘Not yet, Kate. We need more before we can have another go at him. He's too bloody smart, but if we wait, he might just slip up.' It was a vain hope. I'd no idea if he had anything to slip up about, but it's the sort of thing detectives always say when they haven't a clue what to do next.

It seemed that Kate had been giving some thought to finding the errant Metcalfe. ‘Earls Court is a popular place for Australians, guv,' she said when I walked into the incident room. ‘And I should know.'

‘I hope you're not suggesting we should carry out door-to-door enquiries there,' I said.

‘No, guv. But I've got a few informants in the area. It might be worth putting out feelers. If Metcalfe's gone to ground, I can't think of a better place to hide than among a load of other Australians.'

I was not wholly convinced that Kate's suggestion would yield any useful results, but I had to admit that she knew more about Australians than I did. ‘Metcalfe is not exactly an uncommon name,' I said. ‘Even if we assume it's his real name. Anyway, we don't really know what he looks like.' The description that we had obtained from Barnes and Makepeace might just as well have been of two entirely different men. But it was ever thus.

‘And I understand that the name Bruce is quite popular among you antipodeans, guv,' put in Dave, directing a mischievous glance at Kate. ‘But we know that quite a few people at Diana Barton's party actually saw Metcalfe.'